Issues of the CENCO-Congolese political class controversy

Why did the speech that the president of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO) Bishop Marcel Utembi delivered in March 2017 at the UN podium cause such a great controversy within the Congolese political class? Some political actors have in fact attacked CENCO denying it the status of an official speaker on the country''s political issues at the international level. What is the real message at stake in the controversy? Through a structural analysis rooted in the theories of publicization-politicization and polarization as well as dialogism this text demonstrates that the challenge to the status of the discursive body as the speaker of record is only an alibi. The real stakes of the debate are to be found at the level of the confrontation between the democratic values which found the Congolese State - and which the CENCO defends - and the neo-patrimonial if not totalitarian values that a certain political class tends to impose.